Hunting Wyrms
by bigs711
Summary: The hume hunter Talf thinks it's a wyrm hunt. Both the ranger seeq Vitor and the moogle thief Chas think otherwise. A mystery observer awaits for her chance, and a viera sniper shoots her mark. *Thanks for reading! Hope you leave a comment!*
1. She Said She Got Your Back

Chapter I

 **She Said She Got Your Back**

When all your clan mates had either just been immobilized by an arrow shot on their knees or disabled from using their own weapons thanks to a searing pain inflicted by an arm-shot and you yourself were tending a slowly killing poison as you tried to keep distance as far away as possible from ruthless lizard-like sword-wielding gladiators and a well-hidden viera sniper by seeking shelter on top of a cliff without anyone noticing, you would start to think why you joined a clan in the first place. At least that was what I was thinking right now, aside from thinking of a strategy to get through this whole mess and be back to the city of Graszton, drinking at a pub.

"Alright, sssissy hume!" hissed the crocodile-skin bangaa from down below. "Just give up on this hide-and-ssseek and make thisss quick!"

In my view just behind a dying bush, I could see him down in the direction of a pond in the north of the flatland where my friends were cornered and bound. _Wrong direction, you brute,_ I thought. _Behind you!_

"You can't hide from ussss!" he snarled as he breathed out fire on an innocent tree, probably thinking I was dumb enough to have climbed there.

I never liked being called a sissy. Who would want to, anyway? But even back when I was a tiny five-year-old hume I already realized that I had a much greater dislike of physical pain than silly name-calls. I had experienced enough torture in my short hume lifespan living with real monsters to know that pain could lead to irreparable damages to a person of hume race, or to any race in that matter.

"What isss the matter now, arrowhead? Can't handle our sssniper?" shouted the bangaa to the trees, still not knowing where to exactly face. He strode back to face my white-furred friend and placed the burning tip of his blade on top of the moogle's head. "Tell me, thief. Do you really think your ridiculousssly insssignificant jobs are enough to form a full-pledge clan?"

"Oh, they could, Javet," answered another bangaa—this one a female—as she pinned down on the flat ground an already beaten up pig-face seeq. "Hunting yellow chocobosss, that isss!" she added with a smirk.

"At-t-t least we don't k-k-kill them, kupo!" said my moogle friend, barely enduring the burning pain on his head.

"Kill them?" said the one called Javet. "A moogle? A three feet tall moogle with a dangling pom-pom, killing?" Addressing his partner, he said, "Can you believe them, Imana? A moogle thief, a fat dim-witted ranger ssseeq, and a sissy hume hunter dreaming of killing…what? A wyrm?"

"You're—the dim-witted—ack!" protested my seeq friend, interrupted by a kick to his back by the one called Imana. "Who the heck said—something—about—ack!—argh!-about freakin' killin' them! Arggg! Dam—ack! Stop—freakin' kickin' my pelvis you stupid lizar-ack! Ouch! Arggg!"

"You dare such insssolence, you porcine fatty hog! Die!" snarled the bangaa Imana as she repeated kicked his behind.

As she tried to knock him out in the most excruciating way, every single doubt as for my joining this clan dissolved and rage took control of my bow, swiftly launching an arrow fueled with fury, piercing through poorly protected back of the female bangaa and hitting a vital organ. The lizard-kind crashed to the barren land just beside my seeq friend, leaving the male one named Javet momentarily shocked and the viera sniper shooting multiple arrows in the direction of the cliff. One of them hit me badly in my right arm—my bow-arm—causing me to retreat and hide back behind the dying bush. _Now that wasn't expected,_ I thought. I had never hit a person that hard, almost knocking her out. But at the same time, I was never hit right at my bow-arm-and this viera sniper effortlessly did it. _This I expect,_ I thought, examining my wound and dreading about my uselessness in battle without the use of my bow-arm. _If only I were born a viera,_ I thought, instantly dismissing it. _I've never seen a male viera in my life!_

The viera instantly vanished after that, which made me more scared than I already was. I was assured she was moving from one treetop to another with such grace that only the people of the wood possess, thinking about which part of my body she would first shoot and what her killing shot would be. Killing me was not what scared me more. It was the twisted feeling of looking forward to this event, when viera sniper would treat me as her equal, though the ultimate end would probably be 'death'. I was scared of my recklessness, my emotion betraying me and allowing this to happen.

"Vitor! Wake up, kupo!" shouted my moogle friend. I immediately turned and saw the male bangaa wildly charging to my porcine friend.

Vitor was too weak and still immobilized by the arrow on his left knee. Even a single blow would surely knock him out. Knowing this, I tried to pull my bowstring to at least postpone his imminent doom but my own injuries and the poison inflicted in my bloodstream made me utterly useless.

As I collapsed at the peak of the cliff I heard a screeching cry of pain distinctly of lizard-kind and saw that the bangaa Javet got caught on one of Vitor's traps. Massive needles coming from the ground next to Vitor impaled the bangaa, abruptly stopping his charge. He was heavily wounded, but had still enough strength to stab Vitor and instantly knock him out. Drawing his sword, the bangaa swiftly recited a spell which would be his killing blow.

As if by instinct, I got up and launched another arrow, wishing the same effect it did the last time, but even before my arrow got the chance to release itself, two arrowheads had already pierced through my hard leather vest, the impact pushing me to the endpoint of the cliff and causing me to fall.

Everything turned hazy after that given the burning sensation of pain caused by all the shots I received—from a _viera_ sniper, no less—and the flying sensation of falling. _So this is what it feels like to fall. Like I'm flying. Like…I'm flying…flying,_ I thought, before realizing the truth. "Holy Heaven! I'm really flying! Ha! Ha! Ha! Screw you gria!" I cried, happily, of course.


	2. And Then It Happened

Chapter II

 **And Then It Happened**

He wasn't the smartest person in their three-man clan. Not even the funniest, or the cutest. In fact when they first encountered Clan Palanza, he tried to fight them head on, as if his bow skills could save them all. If only he listened to the wisdom of his friends early on and stopped imposing his arguments, none of these would have happened.

Early that morning in the month of Silversun, when days were too hot and the nights too short, down below one of the cliffs of Aldanna Range and near its flat wall, a strange-looking clan formed a tent and seemed to be preparing for a hunting expedition. Strange they were given the unthreatening vibe their choice of jobs exuded and the laidback—some would say 'lazy'—attitude they seemed to possess. There were three of them, one of each of those strange—if not mediocre—races, and the thought of them banding together was enough to make anyone—or at least a gria—flinch. One was a white-furred moogle, standing near the tip of the pond, appreciating but never daring to touch the water. There was the chubby seeq seated comfortably on a depressing lawn chair just outside the tent, observing a hume do his work. The hume was less relaxed, a little uneasy, checking his longbow for any scratch every now and then and making sure he had straight arrows.

On a second and more scrutinizing look—which required flying from one cliff to the one with a better view—one could easily assume that the moogle was a thief, though a flute hidden under his jacket would suggest that he was also an animist, or at least learning to be one.

As for the seeq, a closer look at his build would suggest that he was an experienced, if not battle-hardened, porcine-kind. All seeq were regarded as fat, and he was no exception, and yet, beneath the extra pounds were lean muscles capable of absorbing great tension. He was a ranger, no doubt, and an exceptional one, for if I had not been observing—some would say 'spying'—them for quite some time now, I would have not believed that the seemingly untouched and innocuous patch of land just two steps in front of him was set with needle traps capable of inflicting great pain to anyone approaching him. This he had planted effortlessly and mechanically as if he had been doing it for years. It also seemed like setting traps before preparing himself to sleep had been a routine of his for quite some time now.

And then there was the hume: black haired, wiry, and suntanned. It was not his weak race which really irked me. Being a hume was more depressing than irritating. Even with his physical limitations, he seemed determined, if not ambitious enough, to think that he could succeed as a hunter, or at least as a _hume_ hunter. It made him seem respectable in some way, not irksome. And yet despite this, his grasp of reality about life, and specifically about bow wielders, was mediocre at best.

"So what you're saying—tell me if I got this right—is that viera snipers are better than gria hunters?" clarified the seeq after the hume had finished a lengthy lecture about the best bow wielders in the whole of Jylland region.

"Damn right they are!" declared the hume, pointing his bow to the direction of the seeq. "And I tell you, Vitor, without those dragon wings, gria and humes are equals!"

"That's crazy. You're crazy!" declared Vitor as he stood to shout to the moogle near the pond. "Hey Chas! The kid is crazy!—said he's better than a gria! Ha! Ha! Ha! What did you feed him this time—a chocobo pellet? Ah! Hah—!" he paused and then continued with a snort.

The moogle named Chas momentarily took his flute from inside his jacket and stared at the pond, as if troubled, and finally kept away again his instrument. He made some short but fast strides which his short legs could only provide as he went back to the tent, smoothly avoiding the patch of land he expected the seeq to have set his trap.

"Are you alright, Chas?" asked the hume, picking up the uneasiness in the moogle's expression. "Are there wild monsters around that we should be alert of? Should we pack up?" The hume started collecting the scrolls of map illustrations placed on top of a folding table, eager to bolt away in an instant to avoid head on encounter.

"Tie up your chocobo feet, arrow-boy," said Victor, "Let the white one talk." Facing the moogle, he took his seat, the chair at the brink of collapse because of the weight. "So what bothers you?"

"I was thinking…Hmm…Oh never mind, kupo," he finally said, "Just my pom-pom issues."

"If that's the case," started the hume, resetting the scrolls on top of the table, "Let's discuss now how we can fend off the wyrm from this place." The hume attempted to lean on his bow but abruptly decided not to, remembering how much he cared for his weapon of choice.

"Who said 'wyrm'?" Vitor asked, tilting his hat to screen his porcine snout from the sunbeams. "Look, Talf," he snorted as he faced the hume, "This is the Aldanna Range. There are no wyrms here. Yes, we may have a glimpse through the corner of our eyes—if they're as sharp as mine, of course—a running brown chocobo or two, or, if we're lucky enough, encounter a werewolf during the quietest of nights, but I assure you. No. Wyrms."

"Vitor is right, kupo-po!" added Chas. "I can't smell their rotten breath here. But if we had a viera she could probably…" he stopped and sighed.

"But, that's the point, isn't it?" the hume Talf insisted on his companions. "They are not _supposed_ to lurk in this part of Loar. That's why when our mystery witness saw this flying monster roam the Aldanna skies in the hot midday of Silversun, he immediately posted a request in the pub asking for anyone to fend it off." The hume bumped his left fist on the table to emphasize his point and pointed his finger to Vitor. "That's why we're here."

"I don't know," the seeq protested. "The mission details never said 'wyrm'." Turning to face Chas, he said, "Could be a black flying chocobo for all we know. Am' right, whitey?"

"It says _'a massive shadow of a flying being'_ , _'sort'a-like-a-dragon wings'_ , and _'I may have gotten burned by its mere presence'_ ," Chas said, digging his memory of the details from the mission notes. "Though I still doubt it's a wyrm, kupo!"

In the middle of their pointless, if not totally ridiculous, arguments centered on the hume's unwavering persistence of the presence of a wyrm, the seeq Vitor suddenly bolted up from his chair and vigilantly stared at the massive tree of blood-red spear-like leaves. Without wasting more time he instinctively shoved the hume to the side while screaming to the top of his lungs, "Snipe attack!"

It was warning already too late for before the tiny moogle could even jump to the side, a swift arrow had already punctured his moogle leg, causing sharp, unbearable pain and leaving him immobile. As he collapsed to the ground, his gaze searched for his hume friend who was just regaining consciousness. When his eyes locked with the hume's, he whispered, "Go, kupo!"

The hume hesitated for a moment, loading his bow with an arrow, wanting to return fire.

The seeq, aware of this, screamed to the hume, "Save it, arrow-boy! Run!"

Just as the hume started sprinting to the woods, a swift arrow shot passed just above his left shoulder, inflicting a terrible gash in the side of his neck, spewing out torrent of blood. As if the damage was not bad enough, an aching, burning feeling engulfed his inside, slowing him down to the point of almost passing out. But it didn't stop him. He kept on running until he felt an inclination of the land. He was running up toward the top of the cliff and every step made him search for breath. He was confused, exhausted, and terrified.

The seeq on the other hand was cursing the uselessness of his arm, trying to grab his knife from its sheath but to no avail because of the arrow pinned just above his elbow. Had he not pushed his hume companion, he would not have been struck by the arrow. And yet what he kept on thinking was how he could have prevented all these if he had been more aware of his surroundings. If only he had followed his instinct when he heard the slight movement near the doomed fyretree, none of these would have happened. As he used his off-hand to search for bandage for his moogle friend, a heavy kick from behind sent him bouncing to the ground, face first. A heavy weight of a foot with sharp claws then pushed and pinned him down and, as he tried to turn to see who it was, a distinct hissing and at the same time husky sound coming from his behind made him shiver.

"Greetingsss, my friendsss," announced the attacker, a large, reptilian-kind with an imposing body covered in scales. A female bangaa gladiator.

"Just holy freakin' great," muttered Vitor, "Clan Palanza!"


	3. It's a Trap!

Chapter III

 **It's a Trap!**

"At your ssservice!" hissed the bangaa before striking Vitor with her icy sword. The slash made the seeq cry of agonizing pain, and the hurting moogle shout for his name.

"You filthy crooks! You scum—ack!" protested Vitor through his endless pain. "You merciless, pitiful—argg!—bloodlust barbaric—ack!—scums—Gaah!" The last strike at his back caused blood to spew out from his mouth.

"Vitor, kupo-po!" The moogle Chas forced his body to stand thinking he could save his seeq friend, but the arrow shot deep in his knee made him drop halfway back to the ground. "What d-d-do you want from us?" he shouted to the lizard-kind. "Who are y-y-you, kupo?"

"Ahhh! So the fatty is the sssmart one," said another bangaa, a bigger one with menacing lizard eyes and an equally menacing sword, as he stepped out from the shadows of the fyretree to approach the frantic moogle. "Paused for awhile, Imana," he ordered the female bangaa. "We don't want the party to end," he looked pitifully at the hard-beaten seeq, "without enjoying ourselves firssst!" He moved closer to where the seeq was and leaned his scaly elbows on his knees, peering closely at the bloody mess. "You ssseem sssmart enough to recognize us, fatpig. What else do you know?"

Having failed to get an answer, he gave him an excruciating blow in the side, causing the seeq to spew out even more blood. "Taaaalk!"

"Alright, you liz—ack!" Vitor answered as another blow hit his behind. "What I know is," he answered, only interrupted by his deep heavy breathing, "That you're a menace to this world whose only goal is to ruthlessly kill monsters of the wild—gaah!—and sell what remains to your filthy black market—ack! You're a disgrace to the legitimate hunting community! Pitiful, arrogant, filthy liz—Arrg!"

"So far ssso good," said the bangaa as he poked the seeq's arrow wound, pushing it deeper. "What else?"

"Gaaah! You filthy crazy scums! What freakin' else?" he cried. "That your clan is composed of ruthless bangaa blindly following all the bloody whims of Palanza the _freakin'_ Impaler? Everyone knows that!"

"What else!" screamed the bangaa, somewhat irritated about something. "Is that it? Aren't you forgetting sssomething—sssome _one_?"

"Freakin' right I did, you scaly brute!" Vitor turned up to stare at the branches of the fyretree. "No one told me about freakin' viera! A _freakin'_ viera, you hear me! A freakin' snipin' _viera_ amongst you freakin' lizarrr—Ack!—Gaah!—Ahhg!"

"Shut your yapping you worthlessss oversized ssseeq!" the female bangaa snarled as she repeatedly stumped him to the ground. "Surely your worthless porcine brain has not heard of our great and mighty Javet, the all-powerful right hand of the great Palanza! That's what makesss you a truly worthlessss clan!"

"Imana, my darling," said the male bangaa to the female one, his voice drastically changing to a soft hiss, "That'sss enough. I'm sure he now getsss the message."

"Say your thanksss to the great Javet, you piece of ssssickly pig," hissed Ivana to the seeq.

The male bangaa Javet, seeming to have enjoyed the great brutality he employed, straightened up and started walking into the woods, right where the hume had bolted in. "Alright, sssissy hume!"


	4. The Lift

Chapter IV

 **The Lift**

He wouldn't be as heavy as those hundred-pound infant white chocobos that I used to lift every time they would fall from the peaks of the ranges for attempting to mimic their black counterpart, I thought. And when I actually tried and did it, I realized I was so wrong I wanted to just drop him.

Right after the hume's disastrous attempts to save his friends—first, when he made a surprisingly impressive critical shot right through the female bangaa's vital organ, but equally receiving an expert shot right at his bow-arm; and, second, when he attempted to stop the killing blow of the bangaa Javet at his seeq friend by foolishly emerging from his cover right behind the bush at the peak of the cliff and drawing his bowstring, making himself an easy target of an overly confident, awkwardly long-legged, self-important, conceited viera sniper—I decided he might need _my_ expert aid.

Every single _real_ hunter knew that the moment before a person attack was the minute point that person become most vulnerable to unexpected blows. When the _viera_ sniper prepared to launch her own barrage of arrows right through her miserable open target of a hume, I took my chance and shot her using my own wicked greatbow, instantly knocking her out. Glancing at the peak of the cliff, I had a glimpse of the hume's feet right in the air before they plunged down the distant hard ground. I sprinted right after him, jumping at the peak after reaching the end, and dived to catch him up. I had some difficulty grabbing his almost lifeless body, but when I finally did, I freely spread my dragon wings and flapped them viciously to slow our fall. Looking down on the massive shadow I casted on the ground, I now realized how the nu mou hiker from last week thought I was a dragon passing above.

As we were halfway on our descent, the lifeless hume hunter started coming back to life, mumbling unintelligible words only he could understand. And second later when he came to be, he started crying and laughing about flying, and—to my surprise—bellowed, "Screw you, _gria_!"

 _Ingracious brittle-boned weakling_ , I thought before impulsively letting him go and dumping him, big time.


	5. An Omen

Chapter V

 **An Omen**

The viera had her bowstring stretched to its limit, ready to release an arrow capable of temporarily killing the nerves of the unfortunate mark. But she couldn't put her mind into doing it, at least not yet. There was something about the hume—maybe his choice of job, or his fondness of his own bow, the way he handled it with deep care, or the way he caressed his long thick weapon, checking for imperfection, for a bump or a scratch, and his great self-joy of knowing it was indeed flawlessly beautiful—it was something which made him more than just a mark, more than just the unsuspecting target. _Is it the job?_ she asked herself. She paused, finding the answer deep within herself. _It's the vulnerability_ , she finally decided as she relaxed and returned the arrow back to the quiver strapped in her back.

The viera had been perched on a sturdy branch at the upper portion of a fyretree for quite some time now, well-hidden by the burning-red leaves which looked more like thorns. She checked on her two companions silently moving through the tall stalks of grass to the direction where the shadow of the dragon was reportedly seen. _You'll be disappointed,_ she thought. _They're not dragons. More like draggin's,_ she whispered to herself. She turned her view back to her target and listened intently to the speech he was giving to his seeq friend. She then sat down, leaning her right shoulder and her head at the sturdy tree trunk, somewhat mesmerized by how the hume could sustain such trivial, almost shallow, topics to his friend. His voice seemed to her like the rustling sound of the leaves to a gentle wind: meaningless, but soothing. And yet, through his senseless grumbling about clan fees, the decrease in the presence of yellow chocobos, and his dislike of gria, something he had just said passionately made her unexpectedly flush despite herself.

"I'm telling you, Vitor, we really, _badly_ need a new recruit," the hume was saying as he unconsciously stroked his bow. "Doing missions with just the three of us is killing me, _literally_."

The seeq Vitor had just finished planting what seemed like traps and went back to his yard chair, trying to catch up with his lost sleep. It took him a few seconds before his brain registered the hume noise made by his friend as a question. "Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah. Huh. Uhm. What're you sayin'?"

"I said, 'I say we need viera.' Chas also thinks so," the hume said, glancing at his side to point at the direction of the moogle standing at the edge of a pond a few feet away from them, "right, Chas?" He turned back to face the seeq, a smile forming from his lips. "So what do you say?"

"I don't like it," Vitor instantly replied as he grabbed his ranger hat from a table dumped with scrolls and wore it to block away the peaking sun. "'More members, less gil' is what my great uncle used to say. Sharing payment with the two of you is depressing enough already. Why add another one?"

"'Cos it's a viera!"

"So what if it's a viera?"

"'So what'?! 'Cos it's a _freaking_ viera! Have you ever fought one?"

"Why, of course! I fought hundreds—no—thousands of them in my life, as a matter-of-fact," Vitor said with a snort.

"So _you_ know that they're the best bow-wielders in the entire of Jylland. Heck, they're the best in the _entire_ Ivalice," said the hume. "And the best among the best—the elite ones—are so damn good they register as snipers!"

"Holy freakin' great," Victor exclaimed, "Those crazy wicked hunters! 'Bet theirs are thousand times better than your toddler shots!"

"Heck yeah, they are! They're million times better than my best form! Heck, I bet six-year-olds could beat me!"

"That's too bad," snorted Victor.

"It's given," the hume said, his enthusiasm subsiding. "At least I can stand my ground with a gria," he muttered, as if convincing himself.

"Oh you could, couldn't you?" Victor said, gauchely hiding his smirk.

"Heck yeah, I could," the hume insisted. "It's like this. See, viera sniper beats gria hunter beats me. But gria hunter less the wings equals me. Take away their wings and we're equals!" he declared. "Get it?"

Everything the hume said was a praise the viera had never received in the ten years of practicing her chosen trade, not even in the twenty years of her existence. She was well aware of her innate bow superiority over the other races, but such gift only caused her dislike, disdain, and even utter resentment from them. She was used to being _used_ merely as a target-hitting machine and never regarded as a peer. Though it might not have been true to the rest of her kind, hers was a life of hate and apathy.

And yet, here he was. A hume, the worst of all races, the most proud, the insecure, the schemer…and a sweet admirer, a charming orator. _I won't disappoint you,_ the viera finally decided, stretching her bowstring to its limit and pointing her deadly arrow right at her mark's weakest spot: the hume's heart.


	6. He Said, She Said

Chapter VI

 **He Said, She Said**

 _A beating heart._

 _Blood. Arrows. I'm flying…_

 _A dragon. A dragon? A dragon…no…it can't be…_

 _Smells…like burning. Hot red. Hot…sweet…sw—_ "—eet _…_ taste…hmmm…."

"Taste what? Hey. Hey. Arrowhead, hey! Wake up! Wake up!" A sound from somewhere far. A snort.

A soft slap. A slap. Another. A thunderous slap. "Aaaw! Cut it off! Ack! Ouch! Stop!" I protested, waving off waves of slaps from… _A gria?_ "What the heck—!"

Another slap.

"He's fine now," she said, shoving me from her lap and stretching her large, wide, intimidating, yet awkwardly arousing, set of wings. _Dragon wings._

"Yeah, but we'll be needin' the rest o' that elixir of yers for his burnin' cheeks!" said my friend Vitor, who now seemed to be physically capable and bruise-free again, except for some few bleeding scratches and thousands of age-old scars on his belly. He was seated back on his depressing lawn chair, counting gils taken from the side pocket of my—

"That's my bag!" I protested as I lifted myself up to a sitting position. For a moment I thought I'd pass out again, but then regained my balance. I touched my left cheek and felt the sting of all those slaps.

"You got it right, lad. It's your bag, o'right, but 'tis _our_ gil," Vitor said as he continued counting coins and stacking them on the table beside him.

He was right, of course. So instead of protesting I groped around to check for my bow. I started to panic.

"Where's my bow, Vit? Where's my bow?" I sharpened my eyes and scanned everything: the pile of third-class weapons we looted from a band of black mages, the scrolls of maps on the bush, an arrow stuck on the ground, the ground I was sitting on, the gria now hovering above a branch protruding from the side of the cliff where I fell off…

"I fell off the cliff," I breathed out. "I fell off, Vitor-"

"Uh-huh… _sixty-five, seventy-_ "

"'Cos you were about to die—and I was a fool…" My head started to ache.

"— _ninety—_ True, true— _ninety-five-"_

"I was a fool. I thought I could do it! And Chas—where is he? Where's Chas?"

"How much?" Vitor asked.

"How much-"

"Not you, arrow-boy!" Vitor pointed his snout on my left.

I turned my head and felt suffocated by dust as the gria landed. To my surprise, she was holding my precious bow.

"Not much," she said as she started pulling my bowstring to its limit, checking how strong it was. "You can just give me this bow and call it quits," she said as she hit me with an imaginary arrow, grinning.

"Deal!" Vitor said with a snort.

"No deal! No deal!" I tried to stand. I couldn't. "No! No, Vit! Not my bow, man! It's a _freakin'_ Elfin bow!"

"How much without the bow?" Vitor asked the gria.

"Four thousand gils," she replied.

"Take the bow," he decided.

"Nooooooo!" I cried, almost to tears. I turned to the gria. "Alright! Alright! Tell me whatever you want! I'll give you all the loot I had for the last two years. I'll, I'll," I couldn't think of anything, "I'll…I'll give you five bundles of needles!"

"Those'r mine, kid," Vitor snorted.

"I thought it was _ours_!" I protested.

"Nope. _Mine,_ " he replied.

"Forty-five great serpent's fangs," I proposed to the gria.

"Whitey loves them," Vitor interrupted.

"My Zingu pearl!" I proposed, pulling out the precious gem from my secret side pocket, collapsing on my knees, and presenting it to the gria with both of my hands.

I never really knew the worth of the gem. It wasn't even a reward for any mission. I was still working solo back then, three years ago, actually, when a very old, retired nu mou alchemist asked me to deliver the pearl to his longtime colleague in the moogle city of Goug. He lived in Graszton and couldn't handle the long travel. So I travelled alone, budgeting the gils I still had and counting in my head the cash reward he'd give me when I returned. When I reached Goug, I found out that the house at the address given to me was already occupied by a different person. The previous occupant changed address when she got married long, long time ago. I came back to tell the old nu mou about it and told him that the new address was in Camoa, just few days from Graszton, and that I wouldn't mind the travel but I needed the cash allowance for the journey. When I said those words he stared at me for quite some time with a face of disappointment. He then shut his door on me without even taking back the pearl.

The depressing feeling of him thinking I was trying to milk him of gil stayed with me even months after that. That was one of the lowest parts of my life.

"So what do you say?" I asked the gria with my arms offering the pearl and my head bowing. I couldn't let my facial expression betray me and give her any hint that this was nothing compared to my bow.

"Talf, my bo-" Vitor tried to interrupt.

"Nope. No. Not this time, Vitor."

"But it's-"

"Stop! Nope. No."

"Bu-"

"Stop! I know for a fact that this is mine," I said, still looking down. "This is one of the most precious things in my life, and it's my choice!" I slowly looked up to the gria, and looked at her in the eyes, showing sincerity. Then I asked her, "So what do you say-"

"Ysera," she said with a soft voice quite new to my ear.

"So what do you say, Ysera? Will you take this pearl instead?" I said.

A pause. A whisper of the wind. A sweet fragrance. A warm beam of the sun. A sunset.

"Yes," she said.


	7. What?

Chapter VII

 **What?!**

"What?! You gave her a Zingu pearl, kupo?!" the moogle said with utter disbelief.

" _Hush now, whitey!_ " whispered the porcine-kind seeq. "I tried to warn him, o'right! But he kept on yappin' and cuttin' me off!" he said, slapping the cheek of his hume friend.

"Ouch! That still stings!" protested the hume. Turning to the moogle, he said, "Why? What did I do? It's my Zingu pearl!"

The moogle, feeling depressed and disappointed, flapped his tiny bat wings to break their huddle and sat on a flat boulder near them. He glanced at the gria staring at them from inside the open tent, unsure if she could still hear them from such a long distance. He then turned his view back to his two friends arguing at the side of the pond. He never expected this scenario to happen, but thinking about it, he never really expected any of all the events that happened to happen. He slipped his moogle hand inside his vest and touched the blueleaf flute so dear to him, stroking it while reminiscing how this sturdy, smooth thing saved their lives.

When Vitor caught the bangaa Javet to his trap of thorns, Chas thought that it would be the end of it. But when the scaly lizard-kind began to rise up for another attack, he panicked. And at that moment, they all heard the sound of flapping wings—dragon wings—which made all of them pause for a very brief moment. Without much thought he grabbed for his blueleaf flute and played the tune he never thought he'd ever play: the _toadsong_.

He never expected anything to happen after that. He had never played that tune before, afraid that he might turn himself instead into a frog and never revert back to his original form again. He _wished_ Javet would transform into one. And it happened.

Then he heard _his_ voice. Talf's voice. Talf's shouts. Shouts about flying. Then he _saw_ the dragon wings. At first he thought Talf grew himself a pair of wing, and then he saw _her_. Not a wyrm. There was never a wyrm. It was a gria.

She was slowing their fall, slowly descending on the ground. And just a few feet from the ground, she dropped him, with a _thud_.

" _Ribbit!_ " Javet croaked.

Chas pulled the arrow pierced through his ankle, suffering from the excruciating pain the action brought. He rushed a bandage patch just to stop the bleeding and started dragging himself to Vitor. He checked Vitor's wounds and said, "Not a wyrm, kupo-po!"

Vitor smiled a painful smile. He coughed. "Ah! Ha! Hah! –Gah!—Kwah—Oof!—Ha! Ha! A bloody gria! Ah! Ha! Ha!"

"Kupo!" Chas agreed, smiling, muffling his laugh. Laughing.

" _Ribbit!_ " Javet croaked. He started hopping away from them.

"Nice flute-job, whitey!—Gwaah!" Vitor said, still coughing.

"Stop talking, kupo!" He checked the seeq's wounds. "Y-y-your back is a mess, k-kupo."

"Feh! Less worse than our arrow-boy!" he said, pointing his snout to the direction where the hume body was lifelessly laid.

"He's fine. Just passed out from exhaustion," the gria said as she descended on the ground. "The viera escaped. _Dammit_! I thought I got her! Next time then…Hey!" She looked at Vitor. "Is he alright, moogle?" she asked Chas.

"I-I-I don't-" Chas started.

"Good work with the flute! I've been thinking when you'd use that!" She approached Vitor. "It seemed a little late, but better than never, right?" She grabbed Vitor with both hands and effortlessly placed him back on his chair. "Should I?" she asked, pointing to the arrow struck on his arm.

"No need—Gaaaah!" he screamed as she pulled the arrow. "Holy freakin' gr-!"

"Drink this," she said, taking a vial with a red liquid from a pouch strapped on her belt and offering it to the heavily wounded seeq.

"Potion is as blue as me. I have no idea what this red thing—Gah!—Gummff—Mmm! Aaah... 'Tis great, wide-wings!" he said after the gria finished pushing through his mouth the content of the vial. "What was it?"

"X-potion: way, way more potent than the blue one. That's eighty gils," she said with a grin.

"Thank you so much, kupo! Um…" Chas paused.

"My name's Ysera. No, I know. You're Chas. The blue one is Vitor, and that guy over there is Talf." She stretched her dragon wings, flew, and landed beside the hume. "Though I'm not quite sure if potions could still help him," she said, staring at his lifeless face. She gazed at his hair and learned that it was actually black-brown. She checked below his neck and saw tan lines. And his expression was insultingly calm. Long eyebrows. Rosy lips. A three-day old young man's mustache.

"What shall I do, kupo?" the moogle blurted out from her behind.

Momentarily startled, Ysera said, "Go to the pond and throw that slimy frog!"

" _Ribbit!_ " Javet croaked, almost hidden behind a bush, only betrayed by his voice.

Chas and Vitor looked at each other, quizzical.

" _Ribbit!_ " Javet croaked.

Both stared at the frog.

"Tie the freakin' frog, whitey. Find a place somewhere very freakin' far from here and tie that freakin' frog," Vitor finally said.

"Kupo!" Chas agreed, swiftly chasing the frog, holding it with both of his moogle hands, and running toward the pond and past it.

The gria Ysera, her slight annoyance subsiding, sat on the ground and placed the hume's unconscious head on her lap. "What he needs is this," she said as she took from her pouch a vial with a green liquid inside. She tilted his head and, gently parting his lips, poured the liquid in his mouth.

"Blue one, red one, and now that?" Vitor relaxed on his chair. "What's that now, 'Y-potion'?" he said, snorting.

"An elixir. With the current situation that we're all in, this is the only thing that could save him," she said, almost emptying the vial. "This would be enough," she said, placing the lid back. "He'll wake up in a minute," she added, softly touching, softly patting his cheek.

The hume Talf started regaining consciousness, mumbling nonsensical words, talking.

"The lad's dreaming! Ah! Ha! Ha!" snorted Vitor. "What'ye dreamin' now, huh, muhboy? Dragons and stuff? Harr!"

The gria Ysera listened intently to his mumbling, trying to decipher his words, wanting to intrude to his private thoughts. She moved closer, closer now, listening to his voice.

A soft voice. Warm. Tickling. A breeze.

She moved closer, closer now.

"—eet _…_ taste…hmmm…." the hume started mumbling.

The gria Ysera suddenly felt the rush of blood in her face, suddenly feeling conscious of everything: her heavy breathing, his heavy breathing, their close proximity, her hand on his cheek, his head on her lap, his smell…

She started slapping him. She slapped him, and slapped him, and slapped him. He started waking up and she slapped him. He protested and she slapped him, and she slapped him. Regaining her composure, she said, "He's fine now," as she shoved him on the ground.

She got up and stretched her wings, stretched every single joint. All tension was released. She started flapping. _Flap. Flap. Flap._ Flying.


End file.
